Description

Just Southeast of the Gypsies is a lone tower split in two sitting all by itself. The name, Franklin Tower, comes from an old book with a photo of turn of the century hikers, "hiking below Franklin's Tower", as the piture is captioned. The Mine Shaft starts on the Northwest face and ascends the gigantic chimney system that splits the entire tower. Expecting it to be heinous and full of gigantic spiders, we were plesasntly suprised by good quality of rock (for Momument chimney standards) and a challenging adventure winding upwards through a very strange passage.

Mountaineer up through the first rock band with some 5th class moves to access the bench where the chimney starts.

P1: Climb the obvious system encountering some 5.8/5.9 OW towards the end before the chinmey widens and lets you all the way through to the other side of the tower to a belay out side of the chimney . 5.9, 120'+/-.

P2: Go upward through the shaft with excellent protection for the first 25'. Above the roof, mine out the passage and squeeze your way up to the summit. I'm 190 lbs. and just barely fit. If you're much bigger than me, you're not going to fit. There are spots on this pitch where if you fell you might become a perminant fixture, so climb with caution. This pitch is pretty wild. 5.9, 90' +/-.

Descend via one 70-80' rappel, and hike back to the base.

Location

This is 300 yards Southeast of the Gypsies landform.

Protection

Doubles from a #2 to a #6 Friend, triples in the #2 1/2 - #3 1/2, singles down to #1 Friend, long runners, and a single seventy meter rope. We brought a bunch of Big Bros but never placed them, there were opportunities though.